THOUGHTS ON BELIEF AND EVIDENCE. 239 



some special ground for doubt, founded on the character or purpose 

 of the narrator, can be established. The question, how great a weight 

 of that improbability which arises from inconsistency with the ordi- 

 nary course of nature, good testimony will counterbalance, need not 

 be discussed here, but the rule may be laid down that everything 

 which is not contradictory and, in the strict sense of the word, absurd, 

 may be established by sufficient testimony ; and it is evident that the 

 kind of reasoning employed by sceptics against the facts which are 

 the foundation of religious faith, would destroy all belief in either dis- 

 tant scenes or past events, and thus both limit our pleasures and con- 

 fine within the narrowest limits the sources of useful knowledge. Tes- 

 timony may often be so imperfect as not to create belief in what is 

 antecedently probable. It may also be good enough to compel our 

 belief of any tbin^; not absolutely impossible, however opposed to 

 natural probability. The weighing of it is a most important opera- 

 tion to be carried on according to well considered rules and often 

 demanding a clear and practical judgment, but it deserves notice that 

 the cases which form the subject of judicial investigations are just 

 those which afford the greatest opportunities and inducements to 

 falsehood, and We should be wrong if we judged of human nature by 

 a standard formed from the experience of the courts. 



I proceed next to the consideration of our belief in consequences 

 following their known antecedents, or in the relation of cause and 

 effect. This is continually spoken of as involving something very 

 mysterious, and many think that it can only be explained as an 

 instinct, or a primary essential principle of our nature. It includes 

 the notion of power, which, indeed, is only an abstraction of what is 

 common to the many cases of cause and effect which are continually 

 under our notice. If there are uniform laws of Nature, that is, if 

 the Author of nature governs the universe according to a plan founded 

 on Wisdom and Benevolence, not leaving the course of events to 

 accident or unceasing change, then this existence of Law implies and 

 renders necessary that antecedents really the same should have the 

 same consequents. The ultimate cause is supreme and infinitely 

 powerful intelligence, acting on a perfect plan with a view to a result. 

 The regularity which prevails is what ought to be expected under 

 such control. Its action on our minds in producing firm expectation 

 or belief when the known antecedent occurs that the consequent will 

 follow, is, in my view, quite intelligible. States of the mind depend 



Vol. X. a 



